News of the day From Across the Globe, April 19

Chronicle News Services

Updated 10:34 pm, Friday, April 18, 2014

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

News of the day From Across the Globe, April 19

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

1 Syria bombing: A car bomb exploded Friday outside a mosque in a pro-government district of central Syria, killing 14 people in the latest violence to hit the war-shattered city, state-run Syrian television reported. The bombing occurred as worshipers left a mosque on the edge of Akrama after Friday prayers, the report said, and also wounded at least 50 people. The area, populated mainly by Alawites, members of President Bashar Assad's minority sect, repeatedly has been targeted by car bombs.

2 Algeria election: President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won a fourth term in office with a landslide 81 percent of the vote, according to preliminary figures announced Friday. His chief opponent, Ali Benflis, who garnered only 12 percent of the vote, said the election Thursday was marked by "fraud on a massive scale" and vowed not to accept the results. Bouteflika has officially garnered between 75 and 90 percent of the vote in the past four presidential contests - figures described by opposition politicians as inflated. Still he does have a degree of popularity.

3 Students abducted: Twenty-four more Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamic militants have escaped and 85 still are missing, an education official said Friday. Some of the women jumped off the back of a truck when they were kidnapped Tuesday from a high school in the extreme northeast of Nigeria. Others escaped into the Sambisa Forest, which borders their school in Chibok town and is a known hideout of militants of the Boko Haram Islamic militant network.

LATEST NEWS VIDEOS

Report: Ivanka Trump Used Private Email Account For Official BusinessGeoBeats

'Absurd': White House Says US Has 'Not Declared War On North Korea'GeoBeats

CNN's Acosta Asks If Trump Is Trying To Wage A 'Culture War'GeoBeats

White House Defends Trump's Remark: It's 'Appropriate' For The President To Defend Our FlagGeoBeats

"IMPEACH Donald Trump" billboard debuts on Bay BridgeKTVU

Oakland Coliseum conversionSFGate

Trump Once Joked: Ivanka 'Looks Down On Me'GeoBeats

White House: US Has 'Not Declared War On North Korea'GeoBeats

4 Boat capsizes: A boat loaded with people in a Good Friday procession capsized in high waves off eastern Indonesia, leaving dozens of people missing and at least seven dead, police said. Rescuers and fishermen saved 30 injured people off Flores Island who were rushed to a hospital, police said. The fishing boat was designed to hold only 30 people but had more than 70 aboard.

5 Missing plane: A robotic submarine headed back down into the depths of the Indian Ocean on Saturday to scour the seafloor for any trace of the missing Malaysian jet one month after the search began off Australia's west coast, as data from the sub's previous missions turned up no evidence of the plane. It was the seventh attempt by the Bluefin-21 unmanned sub to find wreckage or the black boxes from Flight MH370 in a distant patch of seabed.

6 Bin Laden library: Most didn't notice the new library at the Islamic seminary for girls near Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, until locals saw the paper sign in Urdu posted on its wooden door: "Library of Osama bin Laden, the Martyr." Cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, a radical preacher who runs the Jamia Hafsa madrassa, wanted to honor the memory of the al Qaeda leader, killed in a 2011 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs. Aziz's naming of the library is the first public remembrance of bin Laden in some time.

7 Philippine crucifixions: Devotees in northern Philippine villages had themselves nailed to wooded crosses to re-enact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as thousands of local and foreign spectators watched the bloody annual rites to mark Good Friday in Asia's largest Roman Catholic nation. Church leaders and health officials have spoken out against the practice. Sign painter Ruben Enaje, 53, had himself nailed to a cross in Pampanga province's San Pedro Cutud village for the 28th year.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.